Married to the armed forces

As a new exhibition opens about army 'wives and sweethearts', Lady Richards
tells Cassandra Jardine about being a figurehead for service wives everywhere

Lady Caroline Richards, at home with her husband General Sir David Richards

By Cassandra Jardine

7:00AM GMT 09 Feb 2011

As the wife of the head of our armed forces, Caroline Richards enjoys the benefit of a tied flat in Kensington Palace, complete with a sergeant major to answer the door and a Ghurkha to serve tea. She has grand rooms for entertaining, the (Prince Michael of) Kents and the Gloucesters for neighbours and, if she’s bored, there’s a nest of baby owls to watch close by in Kensington Gardens.

But with the perks comes a role. Whether she wants to be or not, Lady Richards, 57, wife of General Sir David Richards, is a figurehead for thousands of service wives who lead difficult, often lonely and anxious lives. Some aspects of this role she clearly hates: her horror at the prospect of having her picture taken is as extreme as if a quick session of waterboarding had been suggested. But, with the public exposure, comes a platform from which she can air her ideas about how life could be made better for service families. Once she has relaxed enough to share those ideas, Lady Richards, the woman described by her husband as his “conscience”, seems well worth listening to.

Like many Army wives, Lady Richards is used to being the trailing spouse in the background, chiefly known within the regiment. That changed 18 months ago when her husband - known as a consummate politician - became head of the Army, only to be promoted again last October to Chief of the Defence Staff. With his elevation, she has become top of a wish-list of invitees for events such as the party at the National Army Museum tonight where she joins 93-year-old Dame Vera Lynn to open a temporary exhibition, Wives and Sweethearts.

Drawing on the correspondence of soldiers and their loved ones since 1790, the exhibition explores the issues of courtship, marriage, children, separation and bereavement. Times change. It’s no longer necessary to ask the Army’s permission to marry. Nor, since the reforms of the second half of the 19th century, are women virtually forced into prostitution if their husbands die.

But the rigours of being married to someone whose work is dangerous, and involves long absences, have not changed. “People always say: 'Surely you knew what you were letting yourself in for’,” says Lady Richards. “But you don’t. You find out for yourself by being thrown in the deep end.”

Related Articles

Caroline Bond became an Army wife 32 years ago when, not long out of art school, she married a man destined for command. “At Cardiff university, everyone else had long hair; David had sideburns. He tried to blend in but his nickname was 'The Colonel'. He never minded an argument: when the students went on strike he broke it.”

Her father had fought in North Africa in the Second World War, and her uncle had been a prisoner of war, but they did not speak of their experiences. Richards, however, was a career soldier who lived and breathed his work. “When we visited a town on holiday, he would say: 'That would be a wonderful place to land my forward party.'”

While they were engaged, she used to write him long, emotional letters - like some of the more romantic correspondents in the exhibition. Those letters will not one day be left to the museum for posterity. “I’m putting them on a bonfire when we move house,” she says, shuddering at the thought of such exposure.

Since then she has written few letters. “David doesn’t have time to read long letters about me taking the dog for a walk,” she says. “When he was in Afghanistan recently, I think he even pressed delete on some of my emails. When soldiers are deployed, they are working all the time.”

Her most nervous moment was when he failed to answer her emails for four whole days. “It was totally out of character. He had collapsed and was airlifted to a French field hospital, where he was asked his religion,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

“Meanwhile, the children [Joanna and Pippa, now 26 and 24] and I had flown to Oman to meet him for Christmas. I had no idea that he was so ill or what was wrong, so I walked into the hotel to see the headline 'General’s Interpreter arrested for spying’. There was a photo of my husband and his interpreter. I thought he had been poisoned." In fact it was pneumonia, and as soon as he was better she went straight back to Afghanistan.

Given a job that is so all-consuming, her advice to Army spouses is to distract themselves from loneliness and worry with the school run, charity work and watching The X Factor with other wives. Sometimes, she knows, that the approach can be misunderstood. “I once heard an American general’s wife say that her teenage daughter told her she was unfeeling because she didn’t show her feelings about her husband going to Afghanistan. The mother thought she was being strong, but the daughter interpreted it as lack of care.”

Lady Richards is certainly not uncaring. She is well aware of the common problems that services families face: the wives who can’t work, the children who have to keep moving house, and the problems of fathers who come and go. She worries about how children will be affected if the Government, in a drive to save money, stops funding boarding schools, or if the bases are moved from Germany to Britain, where they may not be so well-equipped.

But a certain toughness - or divorce - seems to be the only answers if you have a husband whose last act before going off to work is to says: “Here’s my Will. The other papers are in that drawer.”

Wives tend to react in one of two ways, she finds. “Some women shut themselves off. I have always wanted to know everything. When David went to Sierra Leone in 2000, to try to bring an end to the civil war, I spent hours trying to install a satellite dish so I could get more news. Over the radio I was hearing 'Brigadier Richards hasn’t a hope of breaking these rebels', so I wanted to know as much as I could. If you understand why something is happening - in Sierra Leone, the rebels were hacking off hands and forcing children to be soldiers - it makes it easier to understand why you are there.”

That issue is pertinent to the situation in Afghanistan, as she well knows. “Some people who don’t understand why we are in Afghanistan lack sympathy for the Afghan people. Afghanistan is being demonised. Yet many of our soldiers come back and say they love the place.”

She wants to foster that mutual understanding both to help troops when they return to Britain, and help secure a lasting peace when the Army finally withdraws. Five years ago, to that end, she started a charity, the Afghan Appeal Foundation, when she was moved by the sight of schoolchildren next to an Army base who were being taught in a ragged tent, which the teachers had to put up each morning.

Some NGOs are dubious about the Army becoming involved in helping civilians in this way, but she is a firm believer in the hearts-and-minds approach to securing a lasting victory. “Besides, it’s something that those of us at home can do to help those who are out there.”

Her ideas for improving understanding between the British and the Afghans don’t stop there. Postcards for father, seminars for wives, and special lessons for children on the realities of Afghan life are all causes close to her heart. Among her other plans is to make it possible to forces couples to go straight to Relate for marital counselling. At present they have to go first to an Army welfare officer, which can make them feel reluctant and exposed.

As always, she knows, in these days of cuts, there could be funding problems. So what would be the most important change she would like to see? “The increase tour length to nine months is very tough on families. When David spent nine months in Afghanistan, I found it a long haul. The USA are experiencing huge problems with family breakdown and PTSD after long tours: I don’t want to see that happening here, too.”

While she’s assembling a wish-list, is there anything else she would like to put on it? “Yes. I’d like John Cleese to make us a film about combat stress. The Army thrives on humour.”

* Wives and Sweethearts is at the National Army Museum (Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3 4HT, 020 7730 0717, www.nam.ac.uk) until 30 July